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I object here to some of the replies are extremely negative and generalist. Just because you find a lot of bad people during your lifetime is DOES NOT mean EVERYONE is bad. Seems you forgot that and generalize all the girls in the agency. Maybe some are scams but others are not, I think if you really want to do constructive comments and evaluations you cannot treat every case as if it was a scam. Besides even if the company has all the interest in keeping you as a customer, once you pay for 2 unlimited months there would be an immediate difference in the behaviour/conversation/timing. Considering this works as a small company not as a large multinational.

All my letters from the girl I correspond with are personal, she always replies to what I say she remembers what she told me or didn't tell me, etc. So stop bull****ing like if all letters are generic!
They are not. Period.

Remember that if you are SERIOUS about meeting a girl, you CANNOT spend the whole time thinking its more likely that she is a scam! That is a very bad start, middle or end of anything.
Its like me assuming this really nice person is a bad person just because people I meet are usually crap. That is just plain stupid.

What is too good to be true usually is. Yes but again, you assume we all get "too good to be true" stories?? WE DONT!!!!!!!!!!
So focusing on the non-scam, non-too-good-to-be-true, personalized-letters and all positive aspects, we do find decent girls around here.
I doubt someone can make up a whole life story, day by day, with tons of details for months and remember everything she said or didn't say. If you are lying you will not remember what you said months before unless you go through all the letters and re-read them which would be also extremely unlikely as it would take too long to do that everytime you had to answer. Your scam theory is extremely flawed.

So I would ask for you to respect the other people who are serious and stop treating every situation the same way.

As for that "BAD MOVE" thing from PeopleSmoks, are you stupid?????????
If I want a relation that works I am honest and tell the truth, there's no "moves" or any bull****ting. In ANY relation in REAL LIFE or VIRTUAL it works EXACTLY the same way. I have plenty of girl friends who avoid going out when they are in exams. And I know because I had girl friends who I invited out dozens of times and they never accepted, only after school/exams. I think you either lack the experience to know that it is NORMAL not to lose focus on something as important to a student as end-of-year exams just to meet a guy from internet.

If I had a super important project, I also avoid going out which I have been doing in the last 2 months, I haven't gone play poker with friends for a long time now and they invited me tons of times already. Maybe that means I'm a "scammer" but hey they're not paying to ask me to play? lol...

You need to stop your blind critics and compare real life situations to those with girls in UA. They are people and not an object over which you purchased rights. They can at any time get fed up of you and say "buzz off" like any girl can. Just because you pay does not mean the girl is yours guaranteed and has to do everything you want.
Try meeting girls on free online chats and after a few dozen conversations try to set meeting with them to see what excuses they make up. Honestly, you lack experience from this! You should know paid or not paid, it happens exactly the same thing.

As for translators making up a character or using some other lady profile, how many people in chats make up a different person or pretend to be someone else??
If UA has a "hidden" policy of having translators talk to people pretending to be one or more of the girls then yeah that is clearly a scam. But then we would for sure be able to cross-reference the letters and figure out where the scams are and which girls are not scams. Some of us are actually looking for those girls which are not scams.

If you dont want to use UA the only good thing you can do for others is to post all your letters, cross reference them and identify the scammers.

As for girls talking to more than one guy at the same time, saying similar things, even I do that when I don't have much time and I have to tell the same thing to 2 or 3 different people. Copy/paste. Does that make it a scam? NO.
Writting letters is way more logical to copy/paste and I am not even a bit surprised or think it is something bad, I think it is very natural they do that in the start.

Now for the girl saying "you're the only one" come on... maybe you got laid last week and you still tell her she's the only one? So what did you expect? Be realistic, you don't even know her, you do not have a real relation or any compromise with each other, do you expect her to belong to you before she even meets you???????????
She will possibly find some other guy, she will talk to other man, she will say she likes you very much as well as to 10 other guys, etc.

As for me, as I said my girl does not look too good to be true. Looks like a normal person with good principles, I don't think she is the kind of person who jumps into a relation in her head. She's quite open and a dreamer but very realistic at the same time. At a certain time I stopped writing for two weeks because I got really convinced she didn't want to meet me. I was thinking about that scam thing and she was too busy/wanted to know me better before we met.

Now I think she was right. It would make no sense to meet her now. We are both organizing our lifes and I think it is a good time to meet when we can both focus on the relation. She said I can come anytime I want but that she prefers to meet later, following my April suggestion. Actually she wanted to meet sooner... and I said no, it will be next year, I can't afford to meet her now.
Also don't compare 2 months of unlimited mails with travelling to Ukraine, you are comparing USD 150.00 to over USD 1500.00 so don't say that if I can afford 150 I can afford 1500, that is just plain stupid. I don't want to afford leaving my clients and staff almost unnatended for a week at this moment. Also I have other things which are more cash priority than going to Ukraine meet my possible future wife!

BTW I have the impression the girls show our photos to their parents?

Now this is something we can cross reference because I doubt the same girl will show the photo of 2 different guys to her parents! Ask her what does she say about you to her parents then you can cross reference with the other guy.

There is here someone who is corresponding with the same girl as me, prince, did she show your photo(s) to her parents?
I'd say yes!
I've shown the photo of 2 different girls to some friends as well. :P
See, this is what I mean, you really need to stop thinking "SCAM" on everything the girl does. She's just human! When she's excited about something she tells her friends and her family.

Gosh my posts are sooooo long! :P

Anyway gotta reply to da babe. Please stop the blind critics on this forum, you will never be taken serious that way.

I stand corrected; I bow to your infinite wisdom, and especially to your far superiour experience.

But apart from that:

There are certain parts of certain cities, where I would not venture alone, at night or at all. That does not mean, that everybody living there are muggers. It means, that my statistical chances of getting mugged are bigger there. So if I insist upon doing it anyway, I should be aware of the risks and prepare for them. It's the same on web-dating, your chances of getting "mugged" are considerably higher.

That's what I am trying to say here: "Beware, here be dragons". I don't think, that I ever suggested you to stop your contact, this is your choice ofcourse.

Concerning generalisations. I'm a bit surprised. You have admitted, that you never have been to UA, but nontheless you have a lot of strong opinions of what's up and down there. Based upon your short contact with a few estonian girl. You generalise from Estonia to Ukraine; ....you are in for a sudden awakening. The similarities are small. Even the Baltic countries can't be compared completely to each other.

You asked for constructive criticism. Learn ukrainian or russian, and go live there at least 6 months.

quote: I don't do this Agency stuff anymore. I have a friend who does business in Slovakia and goes every 3 months.. I just go along and will eventually settle on one of the girls from there.. in person.. and checked out properly without the use of agencies..

I know you didn't necessarily mean "settle" on a girl... Maybe settle down with a girl???

quote:It's the same with a lot of the datingsites. People from the west usually haven't got much knowledge of the FSU culture, and when the dating-agencies "sell" their products, they often sound suspiciously like "honest Joe" giving you a glib sales talk. A lot of valueless promises, but no real guarantee whatsoever.

This is something I've said before about dating site profiles. The fact that so many profiles say similar things can't exclude a girl from being legit. Whether it is a scammer or a real girl, they are both trying to "sell" a product. In the case of the scammer, he or she is "selling" a fantasy. And yes, a real girl is trying to "sell" herself to a prospective mate. In either case, which girl would you write to?

1) Hello my new friend! My name is Olga. Of me is 28 years. I like to prepare delicious meals for my family and friends. They say my dishes are tasty. My hobbies are to swimming and excersise. I watch my form because I want to always be beautiful for my beloved man. I like to make a cosy home and to raise loving family with my beloved.[]

2) Hello my new wallet! My name is Olga. Of me is 28 years. I don't cook, so I expect you to take me out for dinner every night. I generally lounge around and do nothing all day. If you want your house cleaned, hire a maid. Kids? Hahaha!!![V]

Okay guys, who gets you to write to them???

quote:As for that "BAD MOVE" thing from PeopleSmoks, are you stupid?????????

Generally speaking.... um... NO!!!! Far from and getting smarter everyday!!!! First of all, I don't believe that every ad from every girl is a scam. It's almost logistically impossible. That said. IF it is a scam, the second you told the scammer you don't have money to visit the girl in the photo, you became easy money.

brunods, think for one second about how many guys write to whatever site the girl is on that you write to. Take those letters, divide them among whatever number of translators, figure on an 8 to 10 hour work day and there are your personalized letters. I honestly don't know the price of "unlimited" correspondence, but I'm sure it's more than enough for someone to make a hefty profit while still employing someone to read your letters everyday. And if it is a scam, (hey the girl may very well be real), but if I was the scammer, I would certainly make sure that your letters got personal attention since I know I have you on a hook and you're not going anywhere or coming to meet my photo girl anytime soon.

So let us repose the question of just who is stupid???

quote:Concerning generalisations. I'm a bit surprised. You have admitted, that you never have been to UA, but nontheless you have a lot of strong opinions of what's up and down there. Based upon your short contact with a few estonian girl. You generalise from Estonia to Ukraine; ....you are in for a sudden awakening. The similarities are small. Even the Baltic countries can't be compared completely to each other.

Granted, I haven't made the trip yet, from what I understand, eastern and western Ukraine are very different from each other in many ways. And as swede said, "Beware, here be dragons". Ukraine and the Baltics may not be off the edge of the map, but yes, there are plenty of dragons.

I hope, you didn't take my remarks about about generalisations personally. They were not directed at you. My opinion is, that you seem to be a very sensible and decent person, and that you will have a fair chance of getting a positive result from your excursion east.

As far as I know, Ukraine contains 37 different national or ethnic
groups, with the russians as the next biggest. Many of these groups are ill at ease with each other (or worse), don't speak each others' language, have different social cultures and political orientations.

So it's ofcourse not possible to generalise about people in UA as a whole.

The "real" ukrainians are in my experience those, who get closest to the ideals, which are the recurrent theme in many profiles.

You're right about those two profiles you used as examples. But it is possible to cram a LOT of information into a profile, if you are careful. It took me 6 weeks to compose my first profile app. 7 years ago, and I believe it described me rather accurately. Also my negative sides.

Hey swede! No, I understood perfectly, thus my reference to the dragons off the edge of the map. Like you, I was trying to warn someone else not to be quite so quick to believe that just because you receive a letter everyday that it automatically means the person answering his letters is the one in the photo. I honestly hope the girl he is writing to is real!!!

And yeah, the similarity of one FSU state to another is abstract at best, let alone the intricacies of each region within each country. Just within the US, driving from state to state can be like driving from country to country. There are so many different sub-cultures within sub-cultures! Heck, from city to city things change! Now that all of these FSU countries are no longer controled by a central government and are allowed to openly show their independent cultures, that were hidden away for decades, it only stands to reason that the differences between former Soviet states would be even more pronounced. The only true commonality I see between FSU states today is their desire to grow economically and become part of the world market place. Thus, the FSU/MOB market openned. As beautiful women was, and in some ways still is, the most desireable export these countries have to offer the world.

I try to learn what I can about Ukraine, as that is where I focused my search. I've made it clear to the girl I'm writing to of my intentions toward her and that when we have kids together, should our meeting go as we both hope and expect, they will know as much about Ukraine, the customs, the language, etc... as they will about the US in our household. I've openly told her that I am her student as well. I'm older than her, but that doesn't mean I know everything, especially about her country and culture. I want to learn.

As for the profile ads, I wasn't so much referring to what the guys might write, as what the girls' ads might look like. The scammers know what "sells". Agencies in general, know what "sells". I'm sure that legitimate girls who place ads get a bit of "coaching" from people at the agencies as to what a western man would like to see in an ad. So similarities between ads, whether scammer or legit, are reasonable to expect. I don't see excluding a girl just because her profle looks so much like so many others.

I ofcourse wish for everyone, that he'll meet his dreamgirl, and my intensions here are mostly to prevent someone having my own experience.

Being very naive, gullible and innocent (though being 60 years old and having years and years of polish contact behind me), I was literally heartbroken, when I returned after 3 months in Ukraine. I simply couldn't believe, that anyone could have such a degree of cynicism. If it had only been my "fianc?e", I could have accepted it. But it seemed to me, that her whole subculture was infected. Poland definitely hadn't prepared me for that.

Datingsites are a very interesting sociological phenomenon. I don't think, that you can find anything, which mirrors a nation's or a group's situation so much. How many women, what they want, what they offer, the difference between city and countryside etc. (I actually
use it to investe my pensionsfunds. So far with success. If a country suddenly spew out a lot of women on datingsites, it's time to sell in that area).

But with the growing popularity of pre-packaged profiles, the uniformity is getting more and more pronounced. Just 5 years ago, you would still meet small masterpieces of individual selfdescriptions, leaving no doubt, that the woman at least existed.
Now it's like fastfood.

People from different countries are usually very different, it is to expect them to behave in a cynic way and discriminate us. When I lived 4 years in Holland which is said to be one of the most open-minded and tolerant countries towards foreigners, I was discriminated from day 1 to the end. There were many things I disliked in the way people think and behave in general but other thinks are much better than in my country. Moral of the story... don't expect things to be perfect. Expect things to be less-than-perfect. The rest is common sense I guess. What I do is just to observe if it is normal for the people in that specific country/city to behave like that before I start thinking about conspiracy theories.

I don't think people care enough about me or you to actually behave in a special way just for 1 person. They behave normal like they would with anybody else. Women in Holland expect men to cook or else they criticise you and the most used word is "you should......", they really like to tell you what you should do, what you should be like, how to behave, etc. Thats the problem with the culture in Holland and thats also why they are known to be very arrogant.
In Ukraine as far as I know, it is like a jungle. So what do you expect? If you go to Russia you should be extremely careful or you'll get mugged very easilly. Same applies in Ukraine.
I guess in our home countries we have a lot more safety.

Cultural differences usually bring in problems in communication. For example in my country it is not normal that guests wash the dishes or clean the table after dinner. But in Brasil it is expected that everyone helps clean up and wash dishes. I had this experience with some brasilian friends and after I heard they were pissed that I didn't help wash the dishes after dinner. I explained that in my culture that would be rude unless its a really good friend of family, even so it is unusual. I bet differences between our culture and ukrainian are much higher so there will be all kinds of missunderstandings.
I guess the best way to make things run more smoothly is to tell people right away that our cultural habits are different and if we're doing something that they consider less polite they should tell us. That should cover your back! I think showing good will is the best way to go.

I'd like to know what that "cynism" means exactly, what happened?
Tell your story "fiancee" story here so I can analyse the situation and explain you what they were thinking.

I think first thing I would do if I was in Ukraine living is not to focus my attention on the girl/relation but to my work and learning how things work instead. It really helps a lot plus you won't react in an exagerated manner to less pleasant situations.

People are not perfect they will do stupid things say what they think and don't think. It is up to us to see things in the best point of view and show them how to see it in the same way. I find Ukrainian women to be very wise in this matter.

quoteatingsites are a very interesting sociological phenomenon. I don't think, that you can find anything, which mirrors a nation's or a group's situation so much. How many women, what they want, what they offer, the difference between city and countryside etc. (I actually
use it to investe my pensionsfunds. So far with success. If a country suddenly spew out a lot of women on datingsites, it's time to sell in that area).

forget the FSU, outer-space-cold winters, 70 years of communism, 80$/month wages, violent drunk men etc.
I found out that WWW/LD dating is much all the same.
Sure, a french or italian woman is very unlikely to ask you to wire $300 because her daddy needs a new liver, but during my (short) experience, you'll see domestic women throwing fantastic sob stories at you anyways.
Let's forget about women, too.
In the gym I go there was this youngster who endlessly bragged about being a model (soon to be on TV), a philandering millionaire or something who had five big ruthless professional bouncers run for their lives.
Shortly thereafter it was discovered he was a broke bum working occasional jobs, whose entire family had gone bankrupt and he was probably around big evil bouncers...bringing them a beer with a smile or cleaning their puke from the floor...and no TV either.
In real life sooner or later you can part Hercules from clowns playing one on TV; you can part millionaires from mortgage kings; you can part hollywood actors from the guy selling popcorn in your local cinema, even if both "work in the movie industry"; you can part Dior models from trashy girls who serve coffee and have sex in the toilet with some tequila-breath truck driver.
Dating makes no difference, but WWW/LD dating actually hampers one's ability to frame liars, sociopaths, benders and pranksters.
The barrier of the computer screen allows Barney to claim he's a millionaire: the next million will be the eight in his bank account and he only works a few hours singing boring songs at corporate events wearing a tuxedo...which earnt him eleventeen music industry gold awards.
Sally is not some middle-aged, divorced sea slug with three kids working mac jobs: she is Muffy ****, the teenaged cheerleader who just won a millionaire contract with Gucci.
Amber is not some american prostitute working in Asia; she is a "international fashion model"; why does she edit her face from the naked pics online, if she is a "international fashion model" and not a prostitute (ok, escort... )? Models usually seek recognition, while a prostitute (who maybe told mommy she was relocating to Seoul to learn embroidery ) might have different priorities.
Yes, and my cousin squeezes oranged with his butt-cheeks...

Citation:
"I'd like to know what that "cynism" means exactly, what happened? Tell your story "fiancee" story here so I can analyse the situation and explain you what they were thinking. "

Cynicism means, that you have stopped believing in idealism, not having any ideals. At the practical level it manifests in a lack of responsibility, decency, honesty etc. You treat other people like objects, and think it's OK, if you misuse them for your own benefit.

Such an attitude is only one step from backstabbing and sociapathy, and this subculture I met in UA, was backstabbing and sociopathic. Not only to foreigners, but also amongst each other. Powerfights, mindgames, manipulations and just plain quarelling were going on a lot of the time.

Thanks for your offer of an analysis, but I'll forego it at the moment. I think, your competence will be much bigger, AFTER you've been in UA. I'm not a great believer in desk-theorists.